New York musician Joey Weisenberg, 27, wants Jews to become comfortable with singing and dancing again. But the Milwaukee native is not sitting quietly on the sidelines hoping for a revolution; he’s in the center of the room working for change.
And his work is receiving recognition. He was featured as one of “36 Under 36: The Next Wave of Jewish Innovators” in the May 21, 2008, issue of the New York Jewish Week.
Weisenberg was selected for the influence he is exerting through song on synagogue worship in New York City.
He recently visited his hometown with his wife, Milwaukee native Molly Weingrod, and their four-month-old son, Lev Boaz Weisenberg. The Chronicle caught up with him at City Market in Shorewood on the last day of the year.
Handsome, self-effacing and warm, in a quiet way, Weisenberg talked about getting involved in klezmer music and studying the mandolin while a student at Columbia University; his travels in Eastern Europe in pursuit of old music; his work as a guitarist performing in some 100 concerts a year with 10 bands in the city.
And he explained how he has developed “Joey Weisenberg’s Spontaneous Jewish Choir.”
As the part-time musical enrichment director at the Kane Street Synagogue, “the oldest Jewish congregation in Brooklyn still serving the community in which it was founded,” according to its Web site, Weisenberg has made some interesting discoveries.
He was primarily involved in instrumental music at the time; but when he started leading services, he found that congregants really wanted to sing and that “you could have powerful musical experiences with amateur singers.”
He soon realized he would much rather lead from the center of the room, than from the front, he said, meaning that he did not want to perform, but rather to facilitate participation. And he became interested in breaking down the barriers between performer and audience.
“I walk into a room and I imagine that the service or event will be most powerful if every voice is included,” he said. And he understood that participation enhanced kavannah or spiritual consciousness.
“What we end up creating is not a perfect performance, rather it’s a powerful exaltation,” he said. “You sacrifice the performance in order to create the spiritual energy.”
According to an article in “CJ: Voices of Conservative/Masorti Judaism” by journalist Sarah Schmerler, a member of his shul, Weisenberg has become indispensable to the congregation since he took the newly created position in fall 2007.
He “began by giving short simple musical instructions at various times during the year,” she wrote. Then he introduced, in services and at many other events, a tune that he called “The Kane Street Niggun” (a niggun is a wordless song), that enabled members to share a sense of ownership and comfort.
Within months he was leading an hour-long Shabbat alternative singers service “with tunes ranging from wordless Chasidic melodies to traditional Shabbat songs.”
Schmerler credits Weisenberg with revitalizing the shul’s Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony, changing it from a “low-key service averaging 20 attendees into the robust, loud, buzz-generating one that draws as many as 75.”
Weisenberg is also taking his way of guiding congregations to sing, his Spontaneous Jewish Choir, on the road as he has received many requests to lead workshops at other synagogues and institutions around the city.
One matter of importance to Weisenberg is connecting the old and the new to create continuity with the past, he said. “Be informed by the old traditions and create new ones to hand down to our children,” he said. “It’s absolutely what we do in other realms, such as Torah study and food traditions….”
Weisenberg has spent a lot of time and energy in pursuit of old knowledge. He traveled around Eastern Europe and the Balkans seeking out traditional Jewish and other ethnic music.
“You just walk into town and ask who the oldest musician is and then you buy them a bottle of vodka. And they are happy to stay up all night playing music,” he said.
In Lithuania, he befriended Marija Krupoves, a singer who speaks 14 languages including Yiddish and Roma (Gypsy). Together they recorded “Without a Country, Songs of Stateless Peoples.”
Weisenberg has also recorded five other albums with the Gerard Edery Ensemble, Ansamble Mastika, Romashka, Michael Winograd and “The Amazing Frozen String Quartet.”
In addition to his synagogue work and performance schedule, Weisenberg teaches guitar, mandolin and bass to private students. He has taught developmentally disabled children, klezmer musicians and rabbinical and cantorial students at Jewish Theological Seminary.
He is on the faculty at Yeshivat Hadar, a new egalitarian yeshiva in Manhattan, and does workshops for a variety of Jewish institutions.
He said he is always learning from every musician and group he plays with. And he studies traditional Jewish nusach (prayer service style and melody) with Cantor Noach Schall.
Weisenberg said he treasures his upbringing in Milwaukee. He said he does not feel identified with any one denomination of Judaism, but seeks to learn from all of the traditions.
“My grandfather, Milton Ettenheim, belonged to probably all nine shuls in the city. And he taught me to learn from all sides,” he said.
With musically talented parents — his father plays flamenco guitar and his mother piano — Weisenberg was naturally inclined to music. He took up the electric guitar at 12 and “grew up playing blues,” he said.
He credits the Milwaukee influences of Hazzan Carey Cohen, Rabbi Michel and Rebbetzin Feige Twerksi and the Milwaukee Jewish Day School Shabbat Sings for his initial love of Jewish music.
“Carey taught me how to read Torah and lead services and he was a real mensch,” he said. “And the Twerskis also inspired me. From them I learned so much about Jewish spirituality and the togetherness of a community.”
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